In the final unresolved fight from the 2024 election that stretched on for months following a flurry of litigation, Republican Jefferson Griffin conceded the North Carolina Supreme Court race to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs on Wednesday.
The declaration was made two days after a federal judge ordered the North Carolina State Board of Elections to certify Riggs’ 734-vote victory and rejected Griffin’s legal challenge to tens of thousands of ballots.
Griffin had seven days to file an appeal after U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who was chosen by President Donald Trump, issued a decision that essentially ended any pending litigation. Rather, six months after the election’s final ballots were cast in November, Griffin decided to drop his legal battle.
“While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding — just as I have respected every judicial tribunal that has heard this case,” Griffin stated on Wednesday morning. “I will not appeal the court’s decision.”
Riggs issued the following statement: “After millions of dollars spent, more than 68,000 voters at risk of losing their votes, thousands of volunteers mobilized, hundreds of legal documents filed, and immeasurable damage done to our democracy, I’m glad the will of the voters was finally heard, six months and two days after Election Day.”
After Election Day, Griffin, a judge on the state appeals court, lost to Riggs, who was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2023.
Out of 5.5 million votes, Riggs led Griffin by 734 votes in both a partial manual recount and a full machine recount.
With the support of the North Carolina Republican Party, however, Griffin swiftly filed hundreds of court challenges in each of the 100 counties in the state, claiming that over 65,000 persons had cast illegitimate ballots.
These allegations centered on three groups of voters: those who, according to Griffin’s attorneys, did not have Social Security numbers or driver’s licenses on file in their registration records; foreign voters who have not resided in North Carolina; and foreign voters who did not include a photo ID with their ballots.
These challenges were still pending in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court of North Carolina, while a number of intricate decisions assessed particular and intricate aspects of Griffin’s claims.
When the subject was brought to the courts that they serve on, Griffin and Riggs resigned from the case.
Myers, the federal judge, issued the most recent and final decision on Monday, thereby confirming Riggs’ victory by ordering that the remaining contested ballots in the contest must be included in the final tally.
Months after they were cast, Myers said, it would be unlawful to throw out tens of thousands of ballots that Griffin said were invalid.
Before the game, you set the rules. In his 68-page order, Myers stated, “You don’t change them after the game is done.”
Republicans currently hold a 5-2 majority on the state Supreme Court, which Riggs’ victory will preserve.
Myers’ judgment came after the North Carolina Supreme Court’s contentious ruling that permitted election officials to proceed with a period for thousands of voters from overseas and the military to “cure” their ballots. In order to consider the larger matter, Myers had previously temporarily blocked that order.
According to that state Supreme Court ruling, roughly 60,000 of the contested ballots cannot be invalidated, but others might be if little mistakes are not corrected.
As a result, those voters would have to provide election officials with proof of eligibility. Even a small percentage of those ballots being declared invalid could have altered the election’s result.
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The controversy centered on whether or not ballots could be thrown out after voters had cast them, and Griffin’s detractors cautioned that this tactic might be repeated in subsequent attempts to sway close elections.
These critics pointed out that Griffin’s views went against a number of established election law precedents, such as the idea that election regulations must be established prior to voting.
In an effort to combat Griffin’s challenges, the DNC had participated in some of the legal actions.
“This effort has always been about upholding the rule of law and making sure that every legal vote in an election is counted,” Griffin said in response to some of the Democrats’ accusations.
The results of the race will now be formally certified by the State Board of Elections. Democrats’ concerns that the Supreme Court race results might be overturned were heightened when state Republicans recently won control of the board following a legal struggle.
Hours after Griffin’s concession, the new GOP majority on the board voted 3-2 to install Sam Hayes, a lawyer with years of experience working for state Republicans, as the group’s executive director in place of Karen Brinson Bell.
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The GOP-controlled Legislature approved a bill last year that gave the auditor, a position Republicans gained in the 2024 election, the power to choose panel members instead of the governor, a Democrat in North Carolina, allowing Republicans to take control of the board.
The governor’s veto was successfully overridden by GOP lawmakers before to their loss of the legislative supermajority.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled last week that the law could stand following months of litigation, enabling Republican state auditor Dave Boliek to choose a new board.
